Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via YouTube, as part of the YouTube partnership program.[6] Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, but registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos and add comments to videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old. In July 2016, the website was ranked as the second most popular site by Alexa Internet, a web traffic analysis company.[1]

YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. The vast majority of its videos are free to view, but there are exceptions, including subscription-based premium channels, film rentals, as well as YouTube Red, a subscription service offering ad-free access to the website and access to exclusive content made in partnership with existing users.

Company history

YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.[7] Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[8] According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, but Chen commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible".[9]

The YouTube logo from launch until 2011, featuring its former slogan Broadcast Yourself

YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from a $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006.[13] YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.[14] The domain namewww.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months.[15] The first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo.[16] The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.[17] YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in September 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site launched officially on December 15, 2005, by which time the site was receiving 8 million views a day.[18][19] The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day.[20] According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43% and more than 14 billion views of videos in May 2010.[21]

In 2014 YouTube said that 300 hours of new videos were uploaded to the site every minute,[22] three times more than one year earlier[23] and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the U.S.[24][25][26] The site has 800 million unique users a month.[27] It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000.[28] According to third-party web analytics providers, Alexa and SimilarWeb, YouTube is the third most visited website in the world, as of June 2015; SimilarWeb also lists YouTube as the top TV and video website globally, attracting more than 15 billion visitors per month.[1][29][30]

The choice of the name www.youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, www.utube.com. The site's owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www.utubeonline.com.[31][32] In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.[33]

In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event.[34] On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter."[35] In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined".[36] In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day.[25] In January 2012, YouTube stated that the figure had increased to four billion videos streamed per day.[24]

In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.[37] In April 2011, James Zern, a YouTube software engineer, revealed that 30% of videos accounted for 99% of views on the site.[38] In November 2011, the Google+ social networking site was integrated directly with YouTube and the Chrome web browser, allowing YouTube videos to be viewed from within the Google+ interface.[39]

In December 2011, YouTube launched a new version of the site interface, with the video channels displayed in a central column on the home page, similar to the news feeds of social networking sites.[40] At the same time, a new version of the YouTube logo was introduced with a darker shade of red, the first change in design since October 2006.[41] In May 2013, YouTube launched a pilot program to begin offering some content providers the ability to charge $0.99 per month or more for certain channels, but the vast majority of its videos would remain free to view.[42][43]

In February 2015, YouTube announced the launch of a new app specifically for use by children visiting the site, called YouTube Kids. It allows parental controls and restrictions on who can upload content, and is available for both Android and iOS devices.[44] Later on August 26, 2015, YouTube Gaming was launched, a platform for video gaming enthusiasts intended to compete with Twitch.tv.[45] 2015 also saw the announcement of a premium YouTube service titled YouTube Red, which provides users with both ad-free content as well as the ability to download videos among other features.[46] On August 10, 2015, Google announced that it was creating a new company, Alphabet, to act as the holding company for Google, with the change in financial reporting to begin in the fourth quarter of 2015. YouTube remains as a subsidiary of Google.[47] In January 2016, YouTube expanded its headquarters in San Bruno by purchasing an office park for $215 million. The complex has 554,000 square feet of space and can house up to 2,800 employees.[48]

Features

Video technology

Playback

Previously, viewing YouTube videos on a personal computer required the Adobe Flash Playerplug-in to be installed in the browser.[49] In January 2010, YouTube launched an experimental version of the site that used the built-in multimedia capabilities of web browsers supporting the HTML5 standard.[50] This allowed videos to be viewed without requiring Adobe Flash Player or any other plug-in to be installed.[51][52] The YouTube site had a page that allowed supported browsers to opt into the HTML5 trial. Only browsers that supported HTML5 Video using the H.264 or WebM formats could play the videos, and not all videos on the site were available.[53][54] On January 27, 2015, YouTube announced that HTML5 will be the default playback method on supported browsers. Supported browsers include Google Chrome, Safari 8, and Internet Explorer 11.[55] YouTube experimented with Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH), which is an adaptive bit-rate HTTP-based streaming solution optimizing the bitrate and quality for the available network.[56] Currently they are using Adobe Dynamic Streaming for Flash.[57]

Uploading

All YouTube users can upload videos up to 15 minutes each in duration. Users who have a good track record of complying with the site's Community Guidelines may be offered the ability to upload videos up to 12 hours in length, which requires verifying the account, normally through a mobile phone.[58] When YouTube was launched in 2005, it was possible to upload long videos, but a ten-minute limit was introduced in March 2006 after YouTube found that the majority of videos exceeding this length were unauthorized uploads of television shows and films.[59][60] The 10-minute limit was increased to 15 minutes in July 2010.[61] If an up-to-date browser version is used, videos greater than 20 GB can be uploaded.[62] Videos captions are made using speech recognition technology when uploaded. Such captioning is usually not perfectly accurate, so YouTube provides several options for manually entering the captions for greater accuracy.[63]

Quality and formats

YouTube originally offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320×240 pixels using the Sorenson Spark codec (a variant of H.263),[66][67] with mono MP3 audio.[68] In June 2007, YouTube added an option to watch videos in 3GP format on mobile phones.[69] In March 2008, a high-quality mode was added, which increased the resolution to 480×360 pixels.[70] In November 2008, 720pHD support was added. At the time of the 720p launch, the YouTube player was changed from a 4:3aspect ratio to a widescreen16:9.[71] With this new feature, YouTube began a switchover to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as its default video compression format. In November 2009, 1080p HD support was added. In July 2010, YouTube announced that it had launched a range of videos in 4K format, which allows a resolution of up to 4096×3072 pixels.[72][73] In June 2015, support for 8K resolution was added, with the videos playing at 7680×4320 pixels.[74]

In June 2014, YouTube introduced videos playing at 60 frames per second, in order to reproduce video games with a frame rate comparable to high-end graphics cards.[75][76] The videos play back at a resolution of 720p or higher.[77] YouTube videos are available in a range of quality levels. The former names of standard quality (SQ), high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD) have been replaced by numerical values representing the vertical resolution of the video. The default video stream is encoded in the VP9 format with stereo Opus audio; if VP9/WebM is not supported in the browser/device or the browser's user agent reports Windows XP, then H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video with stereo AAC audio is used instead.[78]

^ [1] itag is an undocumented parameter used internally by YouTube to differentiate between quality profiles. Until December 2010, there was also a URL parameter known as fmt that allowed a user to force a profile using itag codes.

^ [2] Approximate values based on statistical data; actual bitrate can be higher or lower due to variable encoding rate.

^ [6] Available in the DASH manifest and on YouTube's content distribution servers, but not used in playback.

3D videos

In a video posted on July 21, 2009,[84] YouTube software engineer Peter Bradshaw announced that YouTube users can now upload 3D videos. The videos can be viewed in several different ways, including the common anaglyph (cyan/red lens) method which utilizes glasses worn by the viewer to achieve the 3D effect.[85][86][87] The YouTube Flash player can display stereoscopic content interleaved in rows, columns or a checkerboard pattern, side-by-side or anaglyph using a red/cyan, green/magenta or blue/yellow combination. In May 2011, an HTML5 version of the YouTube player began supporting side-by-side 3D footage that is compatible with Nvidia 3D Vision.[88]

360° videos

In January 2015, Google announced that 360° videos would be natively supported on YouTube. On March 13, 2015, YouTube enabled 360° videos which can be viewed from Google Cardboard, a virtual reality system.[89]

Content accessibility

YouTube offers users the ability to view its videos on web pages outside their website. Each YouTube video is accompanied by a piece of HTML that can be used to embed it on any page on the Web.[90] This functionality is often used to embed YouTube videos in social networking pages and blogs. Users wishing to post a video discussing, inspired by or related to another user's video are able to make a "video response". On August 27, 2013, YouTube announced that it would remove video responses for being an underused feature.[91] Embedding, rating, commenting and response posting can be disabled by the video owner.[92]

YouTube does not usually offer a download link for its videos, and intends for them to be viewed through its website interface.[93] A small number of videos, such as the weekly addresses by President Barack Obama, can be downloaded as MP4 files.[94] Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download YouTube videos.[95] In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.[96] In June 2012, Google sent cease and desist letters threatening legal action against several websites offering online download and conversion of YouTube videos.[97] In response, Zamzar removed the ability to download YouTube videos from its site.[98] The default settings when uploading a video to YouTube will retain a copyright on the video for the uploader, but since July 2012 it has been possible to select a Creative Commons license as the default, allowing other users to reuse and remix the material if it is free of copyright.[99]

Platforms

Most modern smartphones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, either within an application or through an optimized website. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, using RTSP streaming for the video.[100] Not all of YouTube's videos are available on the mobile version of the site.[101] Since June 2007, YouTube's videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube's content to be transcoded into Apple's preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV, iPod Touch and the iPhone.[102] In July 2010, the mobile version of the site was relaunched based on HTML5, avoiding the need to use Adobe Flash Player and optimized for use with touch screen controls.[103] The mobile version is also available as an app for the Android platform.[104][105] In September 2012, YouTube launched its first app for the iPhone, following the decision to drop YouTube as one of the preloaded apps in the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 operating system.[106] According to GlobalWebIndex, YouTube was used by 35% of smartphone users between April and June 2013, making it the third most used app.[107]

A TiVo service update in July 2008 allowed the system to search and play YouTube videos.[108] In January 2009, YouTube launched "YouTube for TV", a version of the website tailored for set-top boxes and other TV-based media devices with web browsers, initially allowing its videos to be viewed on the PlayStation 3 and Wiivideo game consoles.[109][110] In June 2009, YouTube XL was introduced, which has a simplified interface designed for viewing on a standard television screen.[111] YouTube is also available as an app on Xbox Live.[112] On November 15, 2012, Google launched an official app for the Wii, allowing users to watch YouTube videos from the Wii channel.[113] An app is also available for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, and videos can be viewed on the Wii U Internet Browser using HTML5.[114] Google made YouTube available on the Roku player on December 17, 2013,[115] and, in October 2014, the Sony PlayStation 4.[116]

Localization

On June 19, 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localization system.[117] The interface of the website is available with localized versions in 89 countries, one territory (Hong Kong) and a worldwide version.[118]

The YouTube interface suggests which local version should be chosen on the basis of the IP address of the user. In some cases, the message "This video is not available in your country" may appear because of copyright restrictions or inappropriate content.[166] The interface of the YouTube website is available in 76 language versions, including Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Bengali, Burmese, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Laotian, Mongolian, Persian and Uzbek, which do not have local channel versions.[167] Access to YouTube was blocked in Turkey between 2008 and 2010, following controversy over the posting of videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and some material offensive to Muslims.[168][169] In October 2012, a local version of YouTube was launched in Turkey, with the domain youtube.com.tr. The local version is subject to the content regulations found in Turkish law.[170] In March 2009, a dispute between YouTube and the British royalty collection agency PRS for Music led to premium music videos being blocked for YouTube users in the United Kingdom. The removal of videos posted by the major record companies occurred after failure to reach agreement on a licensing deal. The dispute was resolved in September 2009.[171] In April 2009, a similar dispute led to the removal of premium music videos for users in Germany.[172]

YouTube Red

YouTube Red is YouTube's premium subscription service. It offers advertising-free streaming, access to exclusive content, background and offline video playback on mobile devices, and access to the Google Play Music "All Access" service.[173] YouTube Red was originally announced on November 12, 2014, as "Music Key", a subscription music streaming service, and was intended to integrate with and replace the existing Google Play Music "All Access" service.[174][175][176] On October 28, 2015, the service was re-launched as YouTube Red, offering ad-free streaming of all videos, as well as access to exclusive original content.[177]

As of November 2016[update], the service has 1.5 million subscribers, with a further million on a free-trial basis.[178]

Social impact

Both private individuals[179] and large production companies[180] have used YouTube to grow audiences. Independent content creators have built grassroots followings numbering in the thousands at very little cost or effort, while mass retail and radio promotion proved problematic.[179] Concurrently, old media celebrities moved into the website at the invitation of a YouTube management that witnessed early content creators accruing substantial followings, and perceived audience sizes potentially larger than that attainable by television.[180] While YouTube's revenue-sharing "Partner Program" made it possible to earn a substantial living as a video producer—its top five hundred partners each earning more than $100,000 annually[181] and its ten highest-earning channels grossing from $2.5 million to $12 million[182]—in 2012 CMU business editor characterized YouTube as "a free-to-use... promotional platform for the music labels".[183] In 2013 Forbes' Katheryn Thayer asserted that digital-era artists' work must not only be of high quality, but must elicit reactions on the YouTube platform and social media.[184] In 2013, videos of the 2.5% of artists categorized as "mega", "mainstream" and "mid-sized" received 90.3% of the relevant views on YouTube and Vevo.[185] By early 2013 Billboard had announced that it was factoring YouTube streaming data into calculation of the Billboard Hot 100 and related genre charts.[186]

Observing that face-to-face communication of the type that online videos convey has been "fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution", TED curatorChris Anderson referred to several YouTube contributors and asserted that "what Gutenberg did for writing, online video can now do for face-to-face communication".[187] Anderson asserted that it's not far-fetched to say that online video will dramatically accelerate scientific advance, and that video contributors may be about to launch "the biggest learning cycle in human history."[187] In education, for example, the Khan Academy grew from YouTube video tutoring sessions for founder Salman Khan's cousin into what Forbes' Michael Noer called "the largest school in the world", with technology poised to disrupt how people learn.[188] YouTube was awarded a 2008 George Foster Peabody Award,[189] the website being described as a Speakers' Corner that "both embodies and promotes democracy."[190]The Washington Post reported that a disproportionate share of YouTube's most subscribed channels feature minorities, contrasting with mainstream television in which the stars are largely white.[191] A Pew Research Center study reported the development of "visual journalism", in which citizen eyewitnesses and established news organizations share in content creation.[192] The study also concluded that YouTube was becoming an important platform by which people acquire news.[193]

YouTube has enabled people to more directly engage with government, such as in the CNN/YouTube presidential debates (2007) in which ordinary people submitted questions to U.S. presidential candidates via YouTube video, with a techPresident co-founder saying that Internet video was changing the political landscape.[194] Describing the Arab Spring (2010- ), sociologist Philip N. Howard quoted an activist's succinct description that organizing the political unrest involved using "Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world."[195] In 2012, more than a third of the U.S. Senate introduced a resolution condemning Joseph Kony 16 days after the "Kony 2012" video was posted to YouTube, with resolution co-sponsor Senator Lindsey Graham remarking that the video "will do more to lead to (Kony's) demise than all other action combined."[196]

Leading YouTube content creators met at the White House with U.S. President Obama to discuss how government could better connect with the "YouTube generation".[197][198]

Conversely, YouTube has also allowed government to more easily engage with citizens, the White House's official YouTube channel being the seventh top news organization producer on YouTube in 2012[199] and in 2013 a healthcare exchange commissioned Obama impersonator Iman Crosson's YouTube music video spoof to encourage young Americans to enroll in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)-compliant health insurance.[200] In February 2014, U.S. President Obama held a meeting at the White House with leading YouTube content creators to not only promote awareness of Obamacare[201] but more generally to develop ways for government to better connect with the "YouTube Generation".[197] Whereas YouTube's inherent ability to allow presidents to directly connect with average citizens was noted, the YouTube content creators' new media savvy was perceived necessary to better cope with the website's distracting content and fickle audience.[197]

Some YouTube videos have themselves had a direct effect on world events, such as Innocence of Muslims (2012) which spurred protests and related anti-American violence internationally.[202]TED curator Chris Anderson described a phenomenon by which geographically distributed individuals in a certain field share their independently developed skills in YouTube videos, thus challenging others to improve their own skills, and spurring invention and evolution in that field.[187] Journalist Virginia Heffernan stated in The New York Times that such videos have "surprising implications" for the dissemination of culture and even the future of classical music.[203]

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers[204] and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra[205] selected their membership based on individual video performances.[187][205] Further, the cybercollaboration charity video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube edition)" was formed by mixing performances of 57 globally distributed singers into a single musical work,[206] with The Tokyo Times noting the "We Pray for You" YouTube cyber-collaboration video as an example of a trend to use crowdsourcing for charitable purposes.[207] The anti-bullying It Gets Better Project expanded from a single YouTube video directed to discouraged or suicidal LGBT teens,[208] that within two months drew video responses from hundreds including U.S. President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, White House staff, and several cabinet secretaries.[209] Similarly, in response to fifteen-year-old Amanda Todd's video "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self-harm", legislative action was undertaken almost immediately after her suicide to study the prevalence of bullying and form a national anti-bullying strategy.[210]

Revenue

Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing.[211] In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.[212] In January 2012, it was estimated that visitors to YouTube spent an average of 15 minutes a day on the site, in contrast to the four or five hours a day spent by a typical U.S. citizen watching television.[27] In 2012, YouTube's revenue from its ads program was estimated at 3.7 billion.[213] In 2013 it nearly doubled and estimated to hit 5.6 billion dollars according to eMarketer,[213][214][215] others estimated 4.7 billion,[213] The vast majority of videos on YouTube are free to view and supported by advertising.[42] In May 2013, YouTube introduced a trial scheme of 53 subscription channels with prices ranging from $0.99 to $6.99 a month.[216] The move was seen as an attempt to compete with other providers of online subscription services such as Netflix and Hulu.[42]

Advertisement partnerships

YouTube entered into a marketing and advertising partnership with NBC in June 2006.[217] In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows". The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney.[218][219] In November 2009, YouTube launched a version of "Shows" available to UK viewers, offering around 4,000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners.[220] In January 2010, YouTube introduced an online film rentals service,[221] which is available only to users in the US, Canada and the UK as of 2010.[222][223] The service offers over 6,000 films.[224]

Partnership with video creators

In May 2007, YouTube launched its Partner Program, a system based on AdSense which allows the uploader of the video to share the revenue produced by advertising on the site.[225] YouTube typically takes 45 percent of the advertising revenue from videos in the Partner Program, with 55 percent going to the uploader.[226] There are over a million members of the YouTube Partner Program.[227] According to TubeMogul, in 2013 a pre-roll advertisement on YouTube (one that is shown before the video starts) cost advertisers on average $7.60 per 1000 views. Usually no more than half of eligible videos have a pre-roll advertisement, due to a lack of interested advertisers.[228] Assuming pre-roll advertisements on half of videos, a YouTube partner would earn 0.5 X $7.60 X 55% = $2.09 per 1000 views in 2013.[228]

Revenue to copyright holders

Much of YouTube's revenue goes to the copyright holders of the videos.[215] In 2010 it was reported that nearly a third of the videos with advertisements were uploaded without permission of the copyright holders. YouTube gives an option for copyright holders to locate and remove their videos or to have them continue running for revenue.[229] In May 2013, Nintendo began enforcing its copyright ownership and claiming the advertising revenue from video creators who posted screenshots of its games.[230] In February 2015, Nintendo agreed to share the revenue with the video creators.[231][232][233]

Community policy

YouTube has a set of community guidelines aimed to reduce abuse of the site's features. Generally prohibited material includes sexually explicit content, videos of animal abuse, shock videos, content uploaded without the copyright holder's consent, hate speech, spam, and predatory behaviour.[234] Despite the guidelines, YouTube has faced criticism from news sources for content in violation of these guidelines.

Copyrighted material

At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are shown a message asking them not to violate copyright laws.[235] Despite this advice, there are still many unauthorized clips of copyrighted material on YouTube. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a DMCAtakedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. Any successful complaint about copyright infringement results in a YouTube copyright strike. Three successful complaints for copyright infringement against a user account will result in the account and all of its uploaded videos being deleted.[236][237] Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material.[238][239][240] Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works".[241]

During the same court battle, Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over 12 terabytes of data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling "a setback to privacy rights".[242][243] In June 2010, Viacom's lawsuit against Google was rejected in a summary judgment, with U.S. federal Judge Louis L. Stanton stating that Google was protected by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Viacom announced its intention to appeal the ruling.[244] On April 5, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated the case, allowing Viacom's lawsuit against Google to be heard in court again.[245] On March 18, 2014, the lawsuit was settled after seven years with an undisclosed agreement.[246]

In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users. The performance rights organization GEMA argued that YouTube had not done enough to prevent the uploading of German copyrighted music. YouTube responded by stating:

“

We remain committed to finding a solution to the music licensing issue in Germany that will benefit artists, composers, authors, publishers and record labels, as well as the wider YouTube community.[250]

”

On November 1, 2016, the dispute with GEMA was resolved, with Google content ID being used to allow advertisements to be added to videos with content protected by GEMA.[251]

In April 2013, it was reported that Universal Music Group and YouTube have a contractual agreement that prevents content blocked on YouTube by a request from UMG from being restored, even if the uploader of the video files a DMCA counter-notice. When a dispute occurs, the uploader of the video has to contact UMG.[252][253] YouTube's owner Google announced in November 2015 that they would help cover the legal cost in select cases where they believe "fair use" laws apply.[254]

Content ID

In June 2007, YouTube began trials of a system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright. Google CEO Eric Schmidt regarded this system as necessary for resolving lawsuits such as the one from Viacom, which alleged that YouTube profited from content that it did not have the right to distribute.[255] The system, which became known as Content ID,[256] creates an ID File for copyrighted audio and video material, and stores it in a database. When a video is uploaded, it is checked against the database, and flags the video as a copyright violation if a match is found.[257] When this occurs, the content owner has the choice of blocking the video to make it unviewable, tracking the viewing statistics of the video, or adding advertisements to the video. YouTube describes Content ID as "very accurate in finding uploads that look similar to reference files that are of sufficient length and quality to generate an effective ID File".[257] Content ID accounts for over a third of the monetized views on YouTube.[258]

An independent test in 2009 uploaded multiple versions of the same song to YouTube, and concluded that while the system was "surprisingly resilient" in finding copyright violations in the audio tracks of videos, it was not infallible.[259] The use of Content ID to remove material automatically has led to controversy in some cases, as the videos have not been checked by a human for fair use.[260] If a YouTube user disagrees with a decision by Content ID, it is possible to fill in a form disputing the decision.[261] YouTube has cited the effectiveness of Content ID as one of the reasons why the site's rules were modified in December 2010 to allow some users to upload videos of unlimited length.[262]

Controversial content

YouTube has also faced criticism over the offensive content in some of its videos. The uploading of videos containing defamation, pornography, and material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited by YouTube's terms of service.[234] Controversial content has included material relating to Holocaust denial and the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 football fans from Liverpool were crushed to death in 1989.[263][264] YouTube relies on its users to flag the content of videos as inappropriate, and a YouTube employee will view a flagged video to determine whether it violates the site's terms of service.[234] In July 2008, the Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom stated that it was "unimpressed" with YouTube's system for policing its videos, and argued that "proactive review of content should be standard practice for sites hosting user-generated content". YouTube responded by stating:

We have strict rules on what's allowed, and a system that enables anyone who sees inappropriate content to report it to our 24/7 review team and have it dealt with promptly. We educate our community on the rules and include a direct link from every YouTube page to make this process as easy as possible for our users. Given the volume of content uploaded on our site, we think this is by far the most effective way to make sure that the tiny minority of videos that break the rules come down quickly.[265] (July 2008)

In October 2010, U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner urged YouTube to remove from its website videos of imamAnwar al-Awlaki.[266] YouTube pulled some of the videos in November 2010, stating they violated the site's guidelines.[267] In December 2010, YouTube added "promotes terrorism" to the list of reasons that users can give when flagging a video as inappropriate.[268]

In August 2016, YouTube introduced a notification system for a policy restricting the types of content that may be incorporated into videos being monetized, providing a means to notify users of these violations and allow them to appeal. These restrictions cover content that is not deemed "advertiser-friendly", including strong violence, language, sexual content, and "controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown", unless the content is "usually newsworthy or comedic and the creator's intent is to inform or entertain". Although the policy is not new, the issue was brought into prominence by the notification system, as well as a video discussing the matter by prominent user Philip DeFranco, in which he considered the practice to be censorship. On September 1, 2016, the hashtag "#YouTubeIsOverParty" was prominently used on Twitter as a means of discussing the controversy. A YouTube spokesperson stated that "while our policy of demonetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn't changed, we've recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication to our creators."[269][270][271]

User comments

Most videos enable users to leave comments, and these have attracted attention for the negative aspects of both their form and content. In 2006, Time praised Web 2.0 for enabling "community and collaboration on a scale never seen before", and added that YouTube "harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred".[272]The Guardian in 2009 described users' comments on YouTube as:

“

Juvenile, aggressive, misspelled, sexist, homophobic, swinging from raging at the contents of a video to providing a pointlessly detailed description followed by a LOL, YouTube comments are a hotbed of infantile debate and unashamed ignorance – with the occasional burst of wit shining through.[273]

”

In September 2008, The Daily Telegraph commented that YouTube was "notorious" for "some of the most confrontational and ill-formed comment exchanges on the internet", and reported on YouTube Comment Snob, "a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts".[274]The Huffington Post noted in April 2012 that finding comments on YouTube that appear "offensive, stupid and crass" to the "vast majority" of the people is hardly difficult.[275]

On November 6, 2013, Google implemented a comment system oriented on Google+ that required all YouTube users to use a Google+ account in order to comment on videos. The stated motivation for the change was giving creators more power to moderate and block comments, thereby addressing frequent criticisms of their quality and tone.[276] The new system restored the ability to include URLs in comments, which had previously been removed due to problems with abuse.[277][278] In response, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the question "why the fuck do I need a google+ account to comment on a video?" on his YouTube channel to express his negative opinion of the change.[279] The official YouTube announcement[280] received 20,097 "thumbs down" votes and generated more than 32,000 comments in two days.[281] Writing in the Newsday blog Silicon Island, Chase Melvin noted that "Google+ is nowhere near as popular a social media network as Facebook, but it's essentially being forced upon millions of YouTube users who don't want to lose their ability to comment on videos" and "Discussion forums across the Internet are already bursting with outcry against the new comment system". In the same article Melvin goes on to say:[282]

“

Perhaps user complaints are justified, but the idea of revamping the old system isn't so bad.

Think of the crude, misogynistic and racially-charged mudslinging that has transpired over the last eight years on YouTube without any discernible moderation. Isn't any attempt to curb unidentified libelers worth a shot? The system is far from perfect, but Google should be lauded for trying to alleviate some of the damage caused by irate YouTubers hiding behind animosity and anonymity.

”

On July 27, 2015, Google announced in a blog post that it would be removing the requirement to sign up to a Google+ account to post comments to YouTube.[283]

On November 3, 2016, YouTube announced a trial scheme which allows the creators of videos to decide whether to approve, hide or report the comments posted on videos based on an algorithm that detects potentially offensive comments.[284]

View counts

In December 2012, two billion views were removed from the view counts of Universal and Sony music videos on YouTube, prompting a claim by The Daily Dot that the views had been deleted due to a violation of the site's terms of service, which ban the use of automated processes to inflate view counts. This was disputed by Billboard, which said that the two billion views had been moved to Vevo, since the videos were no longer active on YouTube.[285][286] On August 5, 2015, YouTube removed the feature which caused a video's view count to freeze at "301" (later "301+") until the actual count was verified to prevent view count fraud.[287] YouTube view counts now update in real time.[288]

In some countries, YouTube is completely blocked, either through a long term standing ban or for more limited periods of time such as during periods of unrest, the run-up to an election, or in response to upcoming political anniversaries. In other countries access to the website as a whole remains open, but access to specific videos is blocked. In cases where the entire site is banned due to one particular video, YouTube will often agree to remove or limit access to that video in order to restore service.[289]

Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to bandwidth limitations and the site's potential for distraction.[289]

Several countries have blocked access to YouTube:

Iran temporarily blocked access on December 3, 2006, to YouTube and several other sites, after declaring them as violating social and moral codes of conduct. The YouTube block came after a video was posted online that appeared to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex.[290] The block was later lifted and then reinstated after Iran's 2009 presidential election.[291] In 2012, Iran reblocked access, along with access to Google, after the controversial film Innocence of Muslims' trailer was released on YouTube.[292]

Some Australian state education departments block YouTube citing "an inability to determine what sort of video material might be accessed" and "There's no educational value to it and the content of the material on the site."[295]

China blocked access from October 15, 2007 to March 22, 2008, and again starting on March 24, 2009. Access remains blocked.[296][297][298][299]

Morocco blocked access in May 2007, possibly as a result of videos critical of Morocco's actions in Western Sahara.[300] YouTube became accessible again on May 30, 2007, after Maroc Telecom unofficially announced that the denied access to the website was a mere "technical glitch".[301]

Turkey blocked access between 2008 and 2010 after controversy over videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.[302][303][304] In November 2010, a video of the Turkish politician Deniz Baykal caused the site to be blocked again briefly, and the site was threatened with a new shutdown if it did not remove the video.[305] During the two and a half year block of YouTube, the video-sharing website remained the eighth most-accessed site in Turkey.[306][307] In 2014, Turkey blocked the access for the second time, after "a high-level intelligence leak."[308][309][310]

Pakistan blocked access on February 23, 2008, because of "offensive material" towards the Islamic faith, including display of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad.[311] This led to a near global blackout of the YouTube site for around two hours, as the Pakistani block was inadvertently transferred to other countries. On February 26, 2008, the ban was lifted after the website had removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government.[312][313] Many Pakistanis circumvented the three-day block by using virtual private network software.[314] In May 2010, following the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Pakistan again blocked access to YouTube, citing "growing sacrilegious content".[315] The ban was lifted on May 27, 2010, after the website removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government. However, individual videos deemed offensive to Muslims posted on YouTube will continue to be blocked.[316][317] Pakistan again placed a ban on YouTube in September 2012, after the site refused to remove the film Innocence of Muslims, with the ban still in operation as of September 2013.[318] The ban was lifted in January 2016 after YouTube launched a Pakistan-specific version.[319]

In Libya and Egypt, the Innocence of Muslims trailer was blamed for violent protests in September 2012. YouTube stated that "This video—which is widely available on the Web—is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries."[329][330]

Music Key licensing

In May 2014, prior to the launch of YouTube's subscription-based Music Key service, the independent music trade organization Worldwide Independent Network alleged that YouTube was using non-negotiable contracts with independent labels that were "undervalued" in comparison to other streaming services, and that YouTube would block all music content from labels who do not reach a deal to be included on the paid service. In a statement to the Financial Times in June 2014, Robert Kyncl confirmed that YouTube would block the content of labels who do not negotiate deals to be included in the paid service "to ensure that all content on the platform is governed by its new contractual terms." Stating that 90% of labels had reached deals, he went on to say that "while we wish that we had [a] 100% success rate, we understand that is not likely an achievable goal and therefore it is our responsibility to our users and the industry to launch the enhanced music experience."[331][332][333][334] The Financial Times later reported that YouTube had reached an aggregate deal with Merlin Network—a trade group representing over 20,000 independent labels, for their inclusion in the service. However, YouTube itself has not confirmed the deal.[176]

April Fools

YouTube has featured an April Fools prank on the site on April 1 of every year since 2008. In 2008, all the links to the videos on the main page were redirected to Rick Astley's music video "Never Gonna Give You Up", a prank known as "Rickrolling".[335][336] In 2009, when clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down. YouTube claimed that this was a "new layout".[337] In 2010, YouTube temporarily released a "TEXTp" mode, which translated the colors in the videos to random upper case letters. YouTube claimed in a message that this was done in order to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.[338] In 2011, the site celebrated its "100th anniversary" with a "1911 button" and a range of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including "Flugelhorn Feline", a parody of Keyboard Cat.[339] In 2012, clicking on the image of a DVD next to the site logo led to a video about "The YouTube Collection", a purported option to order every YouTube video for home delivery on DVD, videocassette, Laserdisc, or Betamax tapes. The spoof promotional video touted "the complete YouTube experience completely offline."[340] In 2013, YouTube teamed up with satirical newspaper company The Onion to claim that the video sharing website was launched as a contest which had finally come to an end, and would announce a winner of the contest when the site went back up in 2023. A video of two presenters announcing the nominees streamed live for twelve hours.[341] In 2014, YouTube announced that it was responsible for the creation of all viral video trends, and revealed previews of upcoming memes, such as "Clocking", "Kissing Dad", and "Glub Glub Water Dance".[342] In 2015, YouTube added a music button to the video bar that played samples from "Sandstorm" by Darude. Additionally, when users searched for a song title, a message would appear saying "Did you mean: Darude – Sandstorm by Darude".[343] In 2016, YouTube announced "SnoopaVision Beta", telling their users that soon they would have the option to watch every video on the platform in 360 degree mode with Snoop Dogg.[344]

^Tinic Uro (August 13, 2005). "The quest for a new video codec in Flash 8". Retrieved January 27, 2011. We went this route before with Sorenson Spark which is an incomplete implementation of H.263 and it bit us badly when trying to implement certain solutions.